long post!

18th Jan (Freitag)
Once again, the rest had their corp finance class (how disgusting is that??) so I decided to be more adventurous this time. Was initially planning to cycle around the place and maybe visit the castles/vineyards, but by the time I was done at the office it was already 3.30 – which meant that in 1 ½ hrs, the sky wld be dark. Which is kinda irritating, coz the days are so short and u cant see a single thing after that. Moreover, many of the places I wanted to explore were on steep slopes, so cycling that would be a no-no. I did attempt to take a bus to the hallgarten zange, but when I arrived at the nearest bus stop to it, I was told that I would still need to walk for around 2 hours to get there (!!!) I might go back there one day and start like really early, so that I can trekked up there. But that will prolly have to wait coz the weather is getting colder, and the zange is on a hilly place. Brrr…

But anyways, I bumped in Stephanie – the really nice and very pretty girl from ISR, who told me abt Rudesheim. It’s apparently a favourite with tourist (which I am!) and was just a bus ride away. So off to Rudesheim I go!

A chance encounter led to unexpected friendship. Bumped into hae-jin, the Korean girl who has been at ebs for one semester already, her sister who is here to visit, and Brenda, the pretty Mexican girl.

It only took us a few minutes after we disembark from the bus to realize that the place is a dead town (think eltville) in winter. All the shops were closed and even the restaurants were not opened! Bahhh…hae-jin showed us her favourite shop – this nice store which sells xmas décor (the stuff are real pretty!!) but they are closed till mar (im surprised that they even bother to open anytime before nov!)


streets of rudesheim

The place was cold and dready, so we were all happy when we found a restaurant that was opened. Popped in for a hot chocolate – the girls had a slice of cake each too. for me, I was just too cheapskate to order one.


cozy restuarant!

When we reached the bus stop, we realized that we had just missed the 5.53 bus and had to wait an hour for the next. The girls were so cold, so we decided to do the very thing that all the people at “lonely-planet”s and “let’s-go”s would have been ashamed of me of – to take a cab (and call for one, no less) cab came and the bill came up to 17.80 euros. blah. But I reckon its cheaper than a train tic to Frankfurt (does that make me feel better? a little? maybe.)

Clement’s best friend – Fabbrice came over to visit for the weekend. Check this out – he lugged a projector, along his personal luggage, up the train from paris to Frankfurt. Yay to movie screening in clement’s room!


one of the 2 cakes which mathilde made that night! looks funny but tasted great anyway (:

19th jan (samstag)
Off to wiesbaden in the morning as mathilde needed to get a dryer (it’s a rack, really) and we were hoping to find our elusive bedsheets and pillows. missed our bus and caught a train instead (urgh!) but at least we caught cutesy kinder taking part in some cheerleading competition. Had nord-see for lunch – fish/seafood finally!




pony for sale!

Rushed over to Frankfurt to meet the guys – turns out they missed their bus and after lots of communication + miscommunication, the afternoon was finally spent in the Naturmusuem. But that’s not before we take some pics of Frankfurt.


eurobank in frankfurt


hotel which costs 5000 euros for a night stay!

Senckenberg – forschungsinstitut und naturmusuem. We really just came here to see dinosaurs - coz hong wanted to see them so badly. So its was ironic that in the end, it was just me, huifen and caroline who was exploring it. BUT – i really enjoyed the afternoon coz I never saw so many specimen of animals up close! (:





















(1,2) acting silly with t-rex at the entrance of musuem (3,4,5) up close with specimens (6) check out the capybara-eating python (7) zebra in full glory (8) me, deer (9) moles!

A few other museums in Frankfurt I wanna go:
- museum fur modern kunst (museum for modern art)
- architectural musuem

The plan for the night was for everyone (the usual suspects) to meet up and check out some funky club in frankfurt – the cocoon. The guys’ been wanting to go there since the first day we came, so I guess they were happy. But what was supposed to be a night for party turned out to be one of wrong turns, inaccurate information and tired pple. Some were afraid of being turned down at the door by the bouncer coz the advice from was to “dress to kill” (im quite sure my lovely montrails wasn’t exactly what they had in mind when they wrote that) – so yeps, in the end we decided to head home instead of waiting for clement’s frens from whu who could only join us at 1am (which meant that if we were rejected entry, we will be left stranded with no last bus/train)

However, the adventure never seems to end – coz when we reached wiesbaden at 12 hoping to catch the last bus, we were greeted with news that the last bus was in fact at 1.26pm. But oh wells, the day did end afterall – when we finally reached home at 2.15am. by bus (:

20th jan (sonntag)
Like I said, Sundays are meant for staying in. called home in the afternoon and blogged the day away. At night, we caught “the covenant” – same b-grade horror flick, in clement’s room, all thanks to the wonderful projector fabrrice brought! also got to see the funny standing lamp which they newly acquired - light with orange traffic cone over it. looked very artsy. (:

21st jan (montag)
Settled our residence permit thingy (finally!) and went for a talk for some coaching session for exchange students. signed up for it – hoping for some career advice (: did grocery shopping (it’s monday!) and was joined by freddrick – nice swedish dude from jonkonping. Went for party at schloss – apparently it’s a “back to sch” party for all (we finally see german students!)

I guess I don’t mind partying now and then, but after all this while, I have established that im really just not the partying sort. Drinking and never really getting drunk, dancing like you know all the right moves, and checking people out in dim places is just not my kinda thing. gimme a good movie to chill out to, anyday.

22nd jan (dienstag)
After reaching home at 3am and hitting the sack at 4am, I slept till 10ish (huifen and mathilde had already left for sch) went for a nice and refreshing 1 hour jog - i love jogging here, minus the mud that is tainting my nice and clean asics ):

And its my 1st official class of the sem/year! Imagine my excitement when packing in pencils, writing pad into my bag and heading to school with mathilde! And the shock I got when we were greeted by a notice on the door of the class, written in german. Brought it up to philip chantillon coz none of us understood it (as francis said – how dumb isit to leave a note in german for a class conducted in english?) well, professor is sick so class had to be cancelled. Boo!!!

Went to the library to work on my german (which is still pretty bad) and after which, headed to rewe to buy some potatoes. Its curry night! Curry turned out decent I guess, but the frenchs didn’t enjoy it as much. Apparently they don’t eat spicy stuff and only eat sweet things in the morning (explains all their yummy desserts!)

Fabbrice left in the morning!

23rd jan (mittwoch)
After german class, we came home to make ourselves some yummy sandwiches for lunch (chicken mayo-cheese-lettuce-tomato-eggs-toasted-bread!!!) walked to scheckler with mathilde and caroline coz mathilde had to buy some hand lotion. Managed to get our bikes fixed too!

den it was a girls’ night out, when the 4 of us (me, huifen, caro and mathilde) were joined by sandra – the crazy norwegian girl, and we headed for our long awaited ikea expedition! Clement was real nice to lend us his car tho we were given specific instructions to reach home by 9pm (coz of his rendevous with all the hot girls that night!)


(1) girls on couch (2) an excited caroline watching a handball match on tv at ikea! (3) paris! (ok, not quite) (4) dog meets yellow duck and dino (5) ikea by night (6) panda meets white duck and parrot (7) smells like (swedish) meatballs! (8) coming down via giant slide (9) strange stuff toy!

We went crazy in ikea and I was so tempted to buy everything. Finally some decently priced stuff! And of coz, the meatballs which I have been raving to everyone about. As good as how I remembered it – reminded me of how jimmy said the ikea in sweden is the exact replica of the one in singapore. Guess it’s the same everywhere! indulged in a sundae (when im alr coughing my lungs out) and discovered the difference between the macdonalds in spore and germany:

1) they serve beer (apparently in france too!)
2) they charge 20 cents for sauces
3) they do not sell the 50 cents ice-cream cone. Boo!

24th jan (donnerstag)
Finally! A common off day for me, huifen, yinghao and hong. Popped by mainz today, only to realize there isn’t really anything much.


(1,2) sights along the streets of mainz (3) pride of mainz - gutenberg (guy who first created printing) (4) spot the difference between the real and fake facade (5,6,7) mainzer dom (8) fountain! (9) staatstheathre

Went to the Gutenberg museum (famous guy who invented printing!) coz the guys were raving so much about the demonstration of how books are printed, which they saw during the orientation week.


photo of the day (:

So huifen and I paid 3 euros to walk around the place and attended the demonstration, only to realize that it’s conducted in german (guess the sch arranged for eng ones for the students the other time!) it was hilarious coz for ½ hour, I just stood there hoping that she might sprout some englisch or do something which I can understand. Which she never did.


wheeess!




picture taken 1 day apart. loved the effect the difference in lighting had on the pics (:

And I finally gotten my boots! For 19.95 euros! and they are pretty! (they will go on to give me very very painful feet, but at this moment, I am still oblivious, so I am thrilled)

Persevered home for dinner, where the guys cooked for us (for the very 1st time!) panfried macaroni was really good. but even if it wasnt, we were too hungry to care. dinnertime: 10.30pm



25th jan (freitag)
An amazing race today! We were split into groups (of different nationalities, gender and german language proficiency) and had to go frankfurt, mainz or wisebaden to complete a quiz. Turns out im in the same group as mathilde, marujsa (real nice girl from south africa) and fred (some french guy whom I never got to meet)

Enjoyed the conversation I had with marjusa on the bus, where she talked about the racial tension back home. of south African and polish descent, i think its difficult to come from a place where you are the minority and everything is so uncertain. She spoke about the discrimination and her future – of having to choose between a place she grew up and her career prospects. I guess im lucky coz I never had to wonder about that and maybe that just reinforces my point that many things in life are pre-determined and I wonder how my life would be so different if I had been born in a different country, or to different parents. Which makes me really grateful for being who I am.

Wells, amazing race wasn’t all that amazing afterall. Just that I found out that there’s so much more to mainz than I initially thought, when I went the day before. Our relentless effort also paid off when we found this lovely cathedral – Stephanskirche.


Stephanskirche

Made aglio olio again! Still not as good as the one charm’s maid makes. But I guess I’ll get better!

more to come: trip to mercedes benz musuem in stuttgart!

ee-bee-ass part ii

yays! i've finally gotten myself a chatbox! so pple, pls do chat coz i dont want to have to close the box down after 3 days!! its a sunday today and after lots of walking yesterday, we decided that today shall be a "stay-in" day (well, not EXACTLY since we are in sch now coz the internet connection at our hse really sucks)

anyways! carrying on from the last blog entry:

dienstag. (tuesday)
Classes have began for everyone cept for me. Went to lib with vik to settle his flight matters in the morning, lunch with him, huifen and yinghao in the school cafeteria, and frankfurt tour in the afternoon! no purchases, lots of sightseeing, even more walking.


on our way to frankfurt haupbahnhof!


our 1 1/2 hr walk from frankfurt haupbahnhof to haupwache along the river (i just realized we cld have gotten there in 20mins by another way! drats!)



being the city dwellers we are, we cldnt resist the sight of the shops and bustling streets of Hauptwache (ala orchard road) in Frankfurt

In the evening, we visited eltville, a small quaint town near hattenheim. All the shops are closed (I mean ALL. The place is a DEAD town) and only the restaurants are open. vik and i were there early so we had 1hr to walk around and explore a bit.

random posh restuarant

Had dinner at a nice cozy greek restaurant. gyros was good (I think I like greek food!) and 1 hour into our meal, our table was talking to the entire restaurant.


yinghao, hong, vik




5 old ladies at the table beside us were curious about us and one of them started talking to vik non-stop, teaching him how to say “bless-you” in german. Another one had a daughter who was married to a French and hence, could speak fluent french. She started talking to caroline, while mathilde chatted away happily with the 2 old french man to the left of our table.




mittwoch (wed)
finally gotten our calling cards! its still quite expensive to call within europe but I think it beats roaming. anyways, after our german class in the morning (we have german every mon, wed and fri, from 845 - 1pm!!) the rest had class in the afternoon so i was basically on my own. explored the town on foot (coz my bike was locked with huifen’s and I didn’t have the keys) turned out to be a blessing in disguise, coz it was a great opportunity for me to snap away (:


(1) bakery which we patronize during our german class break (think pick-and-bite!) (2) a cart selling stuff outside our hse! kinda reminded us of those we had in spore back in the 80s (3,4,5,6) exploring the neighbourhood (7) the lovely vineyards - its funny how even tho germany is famous for its beer, the place we are in - oestrich winkel - is well-known for wine (wein). which explains why wine is dirt-cheap here! (8) sign which leads to our flat! (9) hattenheim train station


i really like this pic coz it somehow reminded me of a similar photo i took in tanzania. so alike but yet so different (:


check out the sunrays from behind the clouds. im not sure if we get this in spore, but even if we do, we are probably to busy to notice

possibly the coolest hangout.

at night, we hit The Honolulu Bar for a party specially for the exchange students.

roommates!



L-R: Romain, Huifen, Mathile, me, Caroline, Clement, Dan, Yinghao


yes. i know you have been waiting - unglam shot of me! (in Romain's car)

donnerstag.
Yes! Its been one week since we arrived but as yinghao said, it seems like we have known one another for a long time. Guess hanging out and doing everything together does that to people. but anyways, its another day on my own as the rest have their corp finance class from 9am-6pm (there is a reason why I do not like finance) went for a jog in the afternoon and it was great! Got my residence permit done and just as I was about to do some work in the lib, huifen smsed to say their class ended early and they were going home. We did stir-fry veg and bak ku teh tonight, and it tasted great! (:

more to come!

ee-bee-ass part i

It’s 2.58pm here in Hattenheim, Germany, and yes - I am finally starting to blog. To those who are new to the blog, welcome! Entertain yourself while you can for it won’t be long before you realize that:

1) I am not a very consistent blogger (read: im lazy)
2) There’s really nothing very exciting about my life. Which reminds me: I came across this picture on postsecret a while back.

How apt.

Anyways! This is officially my 1st blog entry of 2008! How exciting! I always thought I should begin my year with a list of resolutions or something along those lines. But I guess being the unconventional blogger (yes. I am afraid this means the same thing as lazy) that I am, that wont be the case. Arh wells.

Okaes! So! To the main point of this entry – my EXCHANGE! it’s been a week since I left Singapore (which reminds me that I haven’t called home since last Thurs. hmm) it’s been a busy busy week, although I have the slackest timetable (read: everyone else is having corp finance class now, whilst i am here, blogging away!) the classes here are really strange. Like for one of the marketing courses I am taking, there is only 1 class to attend. And I get like 3 ECTS for that. Hurhurhur. I am so not complaining. So far I have only been to 2 german classes here. So yea. The school is really small too, so I guess everything here is really very different from spore (:

donnerstag. (thurs)
qatar air sucks. Its been such a long time since I experienced motion sickness on airplane (think: indo trip in pri one when I puked the entire choc donut in the middle of jakarta aiport). the flight was experiencing so much turbulence that i wondered if:

1) sky was made of clouds, hence the pilot couldn’t see well
2) rush hour 3 was so bad i was shuddering excessively
3) there was even is a pilot

so yea. I puked like twice. One on each flight. But if there was any consolation, I am really getting better at this. The 1st time I managed to reach for a bag in time (nevermind the bag had holes. Ewww. I know) the 2nd time I was able to make it to the loo (even had a conversation with stewardess on how I am not allowed to use the business class toilet which was 5 rows away from my seat. Had to walk all the way to the back for the correct one). But yes. I puked into the sink. Talk about social responsibility.

We arrived quite promptly at frankfurt flughafen international airport and after some confusion and lost-in-translations, we managed to locate the driver.

Flat 5, Rheinstr. 14, 65347 Hattenheim, Germany

Flat was alright I guess. We stayed on the 3rd floor, so it was crazy having to lug the 21.5kg backpack all the way up. Met our roommate – mathilde, from paris and she’s really nice! Yays! We have officially arrived!!!!

Night was spent cleaning up the very dirty room. Found a mothballs-filled drawer with ritter sport wrapper. great.

view from my window!

freitag.
one day tour to frankfurt with the other exchange students. anne frank museum was my 1st encounter with this country so deeply rooted with war and history.

(1,2) view of frankfurt (3) "the working man" (4) my almost-was-university (5) smu exchange students! (6) frankfurt messe (ala spore expo) (7) paulplatz (8) maggi shop!!! (9) discussion after anne frank musuem tour

day ended with drinks at a tower-looking pub along hauptwache.

L-R: mathilde, me, hong, caroline, yinghao, huifen

samstag.

wiesbaden is probably the next closest thing we can get to civilization besides frankfurt. It was nice walking down the streets, just looking around. Just as we were contemplating whether to cook or eat out, we receive news that caroline’s roommates have arrived!

(1,2) fresh veggies at wiesbaden street market (3) caroline with her french-german dictionary (4,5,6) attempt at artistic pics of random buildings (7) smelly cheese! (8) girls! (9) at the Heidenmauer ("Heathen Wall") - the last remnants of the Roman fortifications of Aquae Mattiacorum.

sonntag.
went for my 1st jog in germany with huifen. headed to school in the afternoon to use the internet after being “deprived” of it for 3 days (singaporeans! guilty as charged!) flat was supposed to be equipped with wireless. but so was hot water and good heating. bahhh. oh. we rented a bike each too. coz burg campus is around 30mins away on foot, so we thought we could save some time + effort by paying 10 euros a month. Yes. I know what you are thinking. I will try not to - get knocked down by a car / run over a dog / crash into a wall / fall into the vineyards.

montag.
german class in the morning! Just as we thought we were late for class (germans are famous for being punctual) turns out the office told us the wrong reporting time. 4 hours of “how-are-yous” and “my-name-is-xinyu” in german is taxing but we survived alright. settled some admin stuff back in schloss and we hit the supermarket* in the evening. 2 guys and 2 girls shopping meant a filled-trolley with grocery ranging from mushroom sauce to table cloth to baileys. Bill total: 71.99 euros. ntuc has never seem so appealing.

*supermarket in hattenheim (or germany, in general) is a place where:
- shopping bags have to be purchased. Price range from 25 cents to 1 euro, depending on material.
- glass/plastic bottles can be recycled for money! It has since become our fav. activity (read: obsession) here – to collect bottles
- a place where we hang out, when we don’t have anything better to do.

Pushed trolley back all the way from rewe coz the guys explained that it is more economical to spend 50 cents on a trolley den on shopping bags.

Vik arrived that night, safe and sound!